OT: Definition of Frustration

[chris.p.bennett at navy.mil (Bennett, Christopher P ET1 MARMC 1230B)]

Hypothetical Situation;

Frustration.

     Working for an organization that is willing to pay an OBSCENE amount of money for leasing a laptop, and then keeps some of them locked up. 

Lets do a little math.

-A decent laptop will cost you about $1800.  Sure there are cheaper and more expensive ones but I am talking about a medium level office laptop.
-This decent laptop will be useful for a max of three years.  I mean really... you may be able to do stuff with it after three years but for the most part it is useful for about three years.

So lets divide $1800 by three to get the ownership cost per year= $600 a year.  Now lets say that you have a business broadband connection with tech support.  It's going to cost you say for the sake of arguement that you pay $100 a month for that.  So now your ownership and operating costs are something like $1800 a year.  I know if I don't get my email I can call Cox and get results damn near immediately.  More often than not it wasn't their fault anyway. ;)

So $1800 a year for three years, ($5400 total) and at the end of that three year period, you can re-use it, recycle it, give it to your kid, sell it on ebay, recoup a little money, whatever...

Most laptops come with what you need... but if you REALLY want to split hairs you can add some costs for software but for the most part I haven't seen this "organization" be legit with licenses yet.  So make it an even $6000 if you like.

My "organization" pays $4800 to LEASE a substandard laptop, the same ones that have been known to catch FIRE... but that's ok because there's a contract with Dell.  Now this is $4800 per year mind you, for a total of: $14,400 and at the end of that lease we have the option to "buy" them for our use for about $2000 each.  With that you get pretty bad customer service.  I know one gentleman that has submitted 34 troublecalls in 6 months on the same computer and they won't replace it.  WTF is all that about?!?  

So $432,000... that is how much my organization pays for 30 laptops for a year... 30 that if I remember correctly are locked up to keep them from being stolen.  

Now I can't speak on this subject officially but in the above hypothetical situation...

Well you do the math.